What Caused My Homeowners' Insurance To Rise In Cost?
Posted on: 22 February 2019
You've paid your premium on time, there's no serious damage to your house that you know of, and yet when the time came to renew your home insurance policy, you were told that your premium would spike upward. What gives? If you find yourself in this situation, here are some of the reasons why you might be looking at a higher monthly insurance cost.
An Inspection Revealed Something
Even if you pay your premium on time and don't give the insurance company any problems, they might still send someone out to your home for an inspection when you are up for a renewal. While your house might look fine to you, the insurance company's employee is looking hard at key areas of your house. If there seems to be an issue you overlooked, like a deteriorating roof, this could cause your premium to increase. If you want to avoid this problem in future years, do a better job of performing maintenance on your house.
Local Rebuild Costs Have Gone Up
Every homeowners' policy usually includes language discussing how much the insurance company will pay to rebuild your home if everything is destroyed or significantly damaged. This amount if often based on how much local construction costs including material and labor. If there has been a significant change in the market that's caused higher construction costs, your insurance policy might go up to compensate for this potential increase.
Your Neighborhood Has Had a Run of Bad Luck
Your insurance policy might also be at the mercy of what's going on in your neighborhood. Even if you haven't suffered any break-ins or fires or other major incidents, it's possible that a few of your neighbors have. If it becomes enough for the insurance company to consider it a trend, this could affect your policy the next time you come up for renewal.
What Can I Do About This?
Having your rate go up because of your house deteriorating or due to a new feature you added, like a swimming pool, is at least a little understandable because these are things you can directly control. But if your rate goes up because of something that is going on in the local area, that might seem a bit unfair. The solution then, may be to take a look around for a different provider of homeowners' insurance. A different insurance company may view things differently when it comes to your neighborhood and that could result in a lower monthly premium.
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